I am sure you would agree that one of the greatest disappoinments for an organic gardener is to find crop beds decimated by critters.
I am sure you would agree that one of the greatest disappoinments for an organic gardener is to find crop beds decimated by critters. Considering that many edible plants take months to mature, one often throws his or her hands up to the garden gods and proclaims ‘what’s the use!!’
Interestingly, it seems that the same simple kitchen ingredient that rid my garden of parrots (who ate all my young snow pea sprouts) could be the answer to my slug and caterpillar problem.
To explain: an old friend sent me an article about cucumbers the other day. Here’s the excerpt that caught my eye.
“Are grubs and slugs ruining your planting beds? Place a few slices in a small pie tin and your garden will be free of pests all season long. The chemicals in the cucumber react with the aluminum to give off a scent undetectable to humans but drive garden pests crazy and make them flee the area”…
I don’t have any spare aluminium pie tins, and besides, in the rainy weather I considered the need for constantly draining off the accumulated water a bit of a hassle. So I lined a few take-away containers with aluminium foil (shiny side up), made some holes for rainwater drainage,
and proceeded ‘anon’ as recommended above. Let us see whether we can ‘nuke with cucs’.
(Afterword: since I performed what seemed to be the magic procedure for de-slugging as described, here’s the result: The slugs came and ate all the cucumbers. Maybe that was a good thing, so they avoided the plants. Or maybe there is worse to come…)